Car Insurance for Males and Females

Auto insurance all by itself can be a pretty intriguing topic. There is so much that can go into the formulation of rates and premiums. There are seemingly endless sets of driving demographics, some of them overlapping with one another. But there is one relationship that is extremely interesting to take a look at, and that is the relationship between men and women. Specifically, the driving behaviors and performance of the two different sexes, and how those things relate back to the rates we pay for auto insurance coverage, are instructive to examine.

Males are More Aggressive Drivers

It is interesting to begin by pointing out an old stereotype that has somehow lingered in the collective consciousness through the years, and that is that women are dangerous and/or unskilled drivers. Depending on which version you hear, they are either inept, or afraid, or too timid behind the wheel. These particular stereotypes have been around for as long as females have been behind the wheel. Yet the old myth does not have any backing evidence these days to support it. Women are pegged even today as dangerous or unskilled; but statistics point to men as the dangerous drivers, not women. Men's auto insurance rates reflect that reality, especially in the younger years.

Young men under the age of 25 face an uphill battle when it comes to trying to find affordable car insurance rates. They have so many statistics piled up over so many years predicting that they will be overly aggressive drivers that take too many risks, that they cannot overcome this perception and even those with a perfect driving record pay a surcharge all the way until age 25.

Not All Drivers Fit Statistics

Of course, not all men are aggressive drivers. Not all of them are reckless or take unnecessary risks. But without the ability to monitor each individual driver, the industry has to make inferences about individuals based on demographic numbers and statistics for gender and age group. This also applies to females. Women are not guaranteed to be more cautious or courteous than men out on the roads. But individuals are assumed to be by the industry until they prove otherwise in their actual individual behavior.

But even though all of this is true, and we know there is no way to prove that any individual will perfectly fit the gender demographic profile; even so, there is indisputable evidence (and reams of it) showing that on average, males are more aggressive behind the wheel, and are more likely to take risks and drive carelessly than females.

Men Break Law More Often

Men are much more likely than women to break the rules of the road. They are less likely to wear seat belts, more likely to be pulled over for reckless driving or failure to yield, and more likely to get in trouble for ignoring stop signs. Simply put, they are more likely to choose to ignore the rules of the road, a behavior that could be construed as discourteous to others they share the road with. Again, these are only statistical tendencies that have been revealed through the years. Any one person from either gender could prove or disprove this data in their particular case. But the general trend remains.

Studies throughout the years have consistently shown that men cause more accidents than women, and that the average damage in the accidents they do cause is more expensive to repair than accident damage caused by females.

How Statistics Relate to Rates

As most people realize, men pay higher rates for auto insurance than women do with all other factors being equal. The fact that the demographic as a whole pays for the behaviors of certain individual members of that demographic tells us a key aspect of auto insurance pricing. To a large extent, we are locked into the rates we pay based on factors that we cannot control. As drivers, there are only certain things we can do to raise or lower our rates. The rest of the factors, the ones we cannot do anything about, are just there. They are based on statistics, but on group and not individual ones. This is easily explained b y the fact that if we all were followed around by auto insurance underwriters, they would need a lot more money for their services and our rates would skyrocket.

It is impractical to complain about the way men's car insurance rates are set according to demographic modeling. There is no other more appealing alternative that anyone has put forward, so in its dearth we all deal with the system as it is. Since the group proves to be lacking in performance, men as individuals cannot complain too loudly about being singled out individually.